China's Internet users exceed U.S. population

[FarCenter]

BEIJING, July 26 (RIA Novosti) - The number of China's Internet users increased by 40 million to 338 million in January-June 2009, exceeding the total U.S. population, official news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday.

About 95% of towns and cities are connected to broadband Internet, Xinhua said, citing the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China has a population of over 1.3 billion people compared with the U.S. population of 307 million.

The number of broadband Internet users in China increased by 10 million in the first half of the year to 93.5 million, the agency said.

Most Chinese netizens use the Internet for news, entertainment and social networking. Online shopping is gaining popularity, as the number of shoppers jumped by 14 million in six months to 87.9 million, the agency said.

<SNIP>
http://en.rian.ru/world/20090726/155628514.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. That's a lot of people looking at whatever their govt allows them to look at.

[DonCoquixote]

2. And all of it is censored

Which means it is exactly the sort of internet the corporations want.

[imdjh]

6. Well, we started with Prodigy and AOL too...nt

[ShamelessHussy]

3. I need to learn Chinese

:wow:

Wonder how Wall St. views the enormous markets over there? Guess that's why they moving everything over there now that they fleeced this market :shrug:

[Eric J in MN]

4. They also have tougher fuel-efficiency standards for cars than the US. (NT)

NT

[Deja Q]

8. Like the Hummer?

http://www.reuters.com/article/reuterscomService5/idUSTRE56L0XL20090722

:evilgrin:



And what the heck:
http://www.buffalonews.com/149/story/744991.html

[imdjh]

5. And turning the crank is good exercise too.

[Igel]

7. Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

The first rule of thumb with an authoritarian government is that statistics serve a purpose beyond simply informing, but often serve to either convince their populations how wonderful the government/country is, or to impress other countries. Sometimes they're issued by lower-level functionaries to make their bosses happy. Internet usage is an indication of modernity and progress; China's government wants to show that China is modernizing and making technological/economic progress.